The Flee Opens Old Wounds

When the story appeared in the Daily News, it was more cringe-inducing than anything else.  O.J. Simpson was a closed chapter in legal history,  Dead and buried.  So too was F. Lee Bailey, the one-time Dream Teamer who has since been disbarred, but he’s apparently determined not to stay that way.


In a 46-page document posted on the website of his consulting firm, F. Lee Bailey wrote that he had additional evidence that would finally erase all doubt about the Heisman trophy winner’s innocence.


“The facts offered here are either largely unchallenged, or much more persuasive than those contrary views which have been argued,” he promised.


That’s quite a promise.  Of course, it’s easy to promise. Delivering is another matter.



The 77-year-old lawyer says that despite what the public may believe about his former client, Simpson wasn’t the type of person to use “raging violence to solve his emotional problems.”


“O.J. – apart from the infliction of injury on Nicole – has no history of resorting to raging violence to solve his emotional problems,” Bailey wrote in the documents, adding that a psychiatrist agreed the former football star had never been psychotic.


Not persuaded yet?  Then chances aren’t good that the beef of Bailey’s argument will win you over, that there were “witnesses” who never testified, which Bailey believes to be a huge mistake on Johnny Cochran’s part (notwithstanding the small detail that he won the acquittal).



*Testimony of Tom Lang, a dog walker, who said he saw a blonde woman arguing with a man near a white pickup truck on the night of a murder with another man crouching 70 feet away. He said he didn’t think anything of it, until he learned of the murder.


*A key witness, Keith Douglas Zlomsowitch, was never called, though Bailey claims Zlomsowitch would have testified that Simpson wasn’t jealous of other men’s relationships with his ex-wife. “The public never heard from Zlomsowitch, even though his testimony would have posed a powerful contradiction to the prosecution’s only claim of motive: that Simpson killed Nicole because of a jealous rage. We had him under subpoena and were prepared to call him, but like so much other critical evidence, the threat of further erosion of the jury was just too great,” he said.


Inexplicably, there’s no mention of O.J.’s Bronco mechanic or the postman at Nicole’s apartment complex. 

This is just embarrassing.  Regardless of what one thinks of O.J., and it remains one of those iconic cases where everyone seems to have an opinion of his guilt or innocence (thought mostly guilt) despite having no actual knowledge, the notion that anybody wants to exhume the case now is bizarre.

According to the Daily News, F. Lee Bailey thinks people are now, more than 15 years after the acquittal, open to new information that will change their view of Simpson.  The 33 years he’s serving doesn’t seem to enter into the equation.



Bailey said he didn’t publish the evidence to clear his client in the public eye because he felt people were too biased following the explosive trial.


“I had always decided to move forward, but was convinced it would take time until anyone has an open mind,” he said.


Why that time is now is unexplained, but based upon the reception his explosive disclosures have received, he may need to get a new watch. 

Seriously, this obviously isn’t about O.J. Simpson, whose legacy is etched in stone whether rightly or wrongly.  This is about F. Lee Bailey, one of a handful of lawyers who have become household names in America.  That’s nothing to sneeze at.  But at 77, and despite his own legal issues, Bailey is not ready to be put on the sled and dragged out to the woods just yet.

It may be that he needs some money and the new consulting biz isn’t paying off as well as hoped.  Maybe another book will do the trick, but there needs to be some demand, some interest, to generate an advance.  Would a new take on O.J., Bailey’s last big case do the trick?

The problem is that his position on the pedestal is at risk.  Sure, being atop a pedestal doesn’t pay well, but that’s a sacrifice one has to make to maintain a legacy.  Then again, legacies don’t pay as well as they used to.  Just ask O.J.

The upshot of this effort, particularly when combined with the multitude of other problems Bailey has faced, is that he’s not likely to do much to make a buck, free O.J. or help his badly tarnished public image.  Lose, lose, lose is a terrible way for a lawyer who had been such a powerhouse at one time to go out, but reopening O.J., on skimpy (to be kind) evidence, isn’t going to save him.

And there aren’t a lot of criminal defense lawyers around who can lay claim to being a household name.  If F. Lee Bailey can’t make a buck off his stories, at least he can keep his dignity so he has something to leave behind.

H/T Above the Law